Business recovery specialist Onyx Group is pushing ahead with its £10million Scottish expansion.

A new state-of-the-art workplace recovery base and data centre is opening next week at Edinburgh's Gyle Business Park.

The facility is designed to help businesses continue to function after a disaster.

It will provide managed workspace for up to 200 people and complement Onyx's workplace recovery centre in Glasgow.

The firm has already built up a 3,000- strong customer base, including the Scottish Executive, Optical Express, Walkers Shortbread, Aberdeen Harbour Board and Scottish Provincial Press.

It is targeting a 50 per cent increase in business in Scotland for 2009 and 30 per cent across the UK as a whole.

Last year the Middlesbrough firm quadrupled turnover from £3m to around £12m.

Neil Stephenson, Onyx Group's CEO, said he is committed to expansion in the Scottish market with plans already in place to launch a new business recovery centre in Aberdeen next year.

He said:"The opening of the new business recovery centre in Edinburgh brings our total now to four, with two in Scotland and two in the north east of England, with the latest addition in Edinburgh giving us 20,000 sq ft of space.

"That will allow employees to come in and work in the event of a crisis situation in their own workplace.

"We are seeing a huge demand for these services at the moment for companies in mission critical environments where a systems failure would have an adverse effect on either the future cost of insurance or market share price.

"Many regulated businesses simply have to have a contingency plan in place in the event of a major failure in their business infrastructure.

"We are seeing a real growth in business from companies now being forced to have system recovery plans in place by their insurance providers.

"In Scotland there are a large number of service sector industries based in financial and technical services within a fairly close proximity, which we see as a great opportunity for growth." Onyx began expanding in Scotland last year with the acquisition of IT service providers Campbell Lee and Dundas IT.

Stephenson added: "The two Scottish acquisitions we made last year have allowed us to consolidate the services those companies provide into two dedicated sites in the east and west of the country." According to statistics produced by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, 80 per cent of businesses affected by a major incident close within 18 months.

At present it is estimated 73 per cent of organisations do not have a business continuity and recovery plan in place..